"The Bold Deserter", in Gaelic "An treigteor dana" is an Irish long dance, set dance or air in 2/4 or 4/4 time and D Major. The parts are played: one part (O'Neill/1915 ed. & 1001, Roche), AB (O'Neill/1850, air version) or AABB (O'Neill/Krassen & 1850). There are eight measures in the A part and twelve in the B part. This version is the melody from the Long Dances portion of O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies but set in eighth notes. It is presented in air, long dance and set dance forms in O'Neill's Music of Ireland, slightly different from one another. O'Neill's version in his 1907 Dance Music of Ireland he said was gleaned from a 1796 volume of country dance airs "issued serially by different authors" in London, although he did not identify it further. It was printed in O'Neill's O'Neill's Irish Music (1915), Krassen's O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1976), O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903) (air - eighth notes), O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903) (long dance - sixteenth notes), O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907) and Roche's Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 1 (1912).